The ARM Climate Research Facility—New Capabilities and the Expected Impacts on Climate Science and Modeling

The ARM Climate Research Facility is a Department of Energy national scientific user facility. Research sites include fixed and mobile facilities, which collect research quality data for climate research. Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science allocated $60 million to the ARM Climate Research Facility for the purchase of instruments and improvement of research sites. With these funds, ARM is in the process of deploying a broad variety of new instruments that will greatly enhance the measurement capabilities of the facility. New instruments being purchased include dual-frequency scanning cloud radars, scanning precipitation radars, Doppler lidars, a mobile Aerosol Observing System and many others. A list of instruments being purchased is available at http://www.arm.gov/about/recovery-act. Orders for all instruments have now been placed and activities are underway to integrate these new systems with our research sites. The overarching goal is to provide instantaneous and statistical measurements of the climate that can be used to advance the physical understanding and predictive performance of climate models. The Recovery Act investments enable the ARM Climate Research Facility to enhance existing and add new measurements, which enable a more complete understanding of the 3-dimensional evolution of cloud processes and related atmospheric properties. Understanding cloud processes are important globally, to reduce climate-modeling uncertainties and help improve our nation's ability to manage climate impacts.